Monthly Archives: March 2012

Four! You’re growing up so quickly.I could go on about the amazing things you do but I would sound boastful. You are so smart and so funny and so caring and wonderful and I love you so much that sometimes I cry just thinking about it.

It’s not all sunshine and lollipops though. You are four now and have been getting better at arguing and asserting your independence and practising your loudest “No!”s an awful lot.

I have a photo of me on my fourth birthday. I am sitting at the table with my mother and I have a super grumpy face and it looks like I’ve been crying. My mum is looking at the camera and looks exhausted, exasperated and totally over it. The looks on both faces are now very familiar to me.

At least I know that your tantrums are either normal or genetic… or karma.

I’m sure you’ll love being four. You are enjoying “school” more than you used to and I know you will love kinder when we get back to Australia.

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If I don’t like something, I just quit. Always have. Sports, jobs, boyfriends, towns, clarinet lessons and personal training sessions.

I don’t like it here and I want to quit. I saw the opportunity for escape on the horizon. It beckoned to me like a psiren in an oasis. Surely I can just change my flights and leave. But where would I go? We released the lease on our house before coming here and our stuff is in storage and when we return we need to find a place to live.

Then the psiren singing from the oasis sang louder and clearer. My dad is coming to visit soon. We can go home with him and live in Christchurch for a few months until husband finishes this assignment and flies back to Australia, finds us a house, puts all our furniture in it and then welcomes us home – back to sanity. Back to usable footpaths, meat pies, clean public toilets, efficient systems and a climate that doesn’t melt me every minute of the day.

The price of the flights was less than the cost of the therapy I was sure I would need soon.

Three to four months in Christchurch. That would be great for the kids, surrounded by family and fresh air. – and did I mention clean public toilets? and pies? oh my kingdom for a steak and cheese pie!

All the pieces fell into place – the escape was possible, hurrah!

But then… well… three to four months is a long time for a dad to be without his kids, and vice versa. Skype is ok… but it’s not the same is it?

And the family in Christchurch have got their lives too… I can’t expect endless babysitting and help, so it would be a case of me playing single mum when I am lucky enough to not have that as my reality.

And, the financial benefits of being here would diminish with the cost of stuff in Christchurch… including the winter clothes we would need the minute the plane touched down….and all those pies…

Then there’s those pesky, and surely quite frightening and taxing, earthquakes that Christchurch keeps having.

The psiren in the oasis falters on that last big note and chokes on a mouthful of reality before she disappears into where she never was.

Suck it up princess, it’s not that bad. It could be so much worse. And one day, one day soon, this will be only a memory and I’ll be complaining about unpacking my boxes and the cold winter in Australia…. and burning my mouth on a meat pie.

Your hair is now long enough to put into tiny pigtails. It is super cute. Not that they last very long as you pull the hair ties out pretty quickly, inspect them and then try to put them back in by simply putting them on your head. Unsuccessful. But very cute.

Your kisses, giggles and dimples melt me.

As you play in front of the mirror, putting pants on your head and arranging a necklace just so, I can see the girly girl you are growing to be…

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Husband and I were flicking through the TV channels last night, trying to find something of interest.

We stumbled across a movie in Hindi called Daddy Cool that reminded us both of Death at a Funeral. As we continued to watch, we noticed that it was EXACTLY like Death at a Funeral, except with different actors and speaking a different language.

Although the occasional word or phrase is in English which screws with my head and makes me think I’m either imagining it or that the total immersion technique of learning a language is working suddenly and that I am interpreting Hindi into English at such a speed that it sounds like English… or something. But no. Sometimes, they just speak a bit of English. Especially when swearing.

This is apparently very common – (the remaking of movies, not the swearing in English thing). Bollywood totally rips off successful western movies. I have read that no rights are purchased, permissions sought or royalties paid for this.

Kahin Pyaar Na Ho Jaaye, a remake of The Wedding Singer has some Indian changes but is still basically the same movie. Ghajini is said to be “loosely” based on Memento, one of my favourite movies of all time. The movie poster for Ghajini is identical to the one for Memento, so I think the term “loosely” is interesting. I am keen to see Ghajini, so will be looking out for that one. Papi Gudia is a complete remake of Child’s Play – and a bad one at that according to the reviews.

There is an extensive list on this blog here, but some movies on that list are only “inspired” by Hollywood where as others, like Child’s Play and Daddy Cool are almost complete scene for scene remakes.